The vision of the Faith Community Network and Volunteer Chaplaincy Services program is to provide a full range of programs and services that will turn around the lives of troubled youth and ensure that voluntary chaplaincy services are available to youth and their families during times of family crisis.

The Foundation serves to changes lives - the lives of students, their parents, and the citizens in our community - by promoting delinquency prevention, intervention and educational opportunities for youth.

Wansley Walters, Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary, speaks during a Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Town Hall Meeting at the Jean and Paul Amos Performance Studio at Pensacola State College.

PANAMA CITY — Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters hosted a town hall meeting Wednesday night to get community feedback on her proposals to reform the way courts address kids who break the law.

The number of youth arrested in Florida’s public schools declined 48 percent in the past eight years, from more than 24,000 to 12,520, according to a study released today by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The decline corresponds with a downward trend in juvenile delinquency in all categories across the state.

As a juvenile court judge, I am pleased to express support for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) Roadmap to System Excellence. I am proud that Florida is taking bold steps to comprehensively reform our juvenile justice system to become a national model for the humane and effective treatment of troubled youth.

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has figured out the difference between going soft on crime and getting ahead of it. The department is embarking on a new approach that calls for shifting more tax money away from incarceration and other last-ditch options and toward early intervention efforts that try to steer children away from crime.

The line between rebellion and delinquency is often fine. But it is there – and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has intensified its commitment to help prevent more children and teens from crossing it.

As co-chair of the Broward Workshop committee on education and youth advocacy, and a member of the Circuit 17 Juvenile Justice Board, I proudly support the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Roadmap to System Excellence.

At an age when most 16-year-olds dream of getting their driver's license, or primping for the prom, or maybe fretting about unwanted pimples, Larry Donell Brown sits in a jail cell. And he's going to sit there for a very, very long time.

As chair of the Juvenile Justice State Advisory Group, which administers federal funding to combat juvenile delinquency, I am proud to stand with my fellow group members to unanimously endorse the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice's Roadmap to System Excellence.

The Democrat’s editorial has it right: The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice’s Roadmap to System Excellence is just plain common sense. As we all know, common sense isn’t so common, nor is it frequent that individuals would take stock of the obvious and effective.